Friday, May 23, 2014

A Love Letter to Book and Movie Blog Reviewers

Dear book and movie review bloggers,

As previously mentioned, I hate book
reviews. But I love books. And movies. I find myself searching out movie
reviews after watching each random film Netflix or Amazon Prime or my parents'
borrowed Comcast Xfinity sucks me into, an observer of conversations that took
place long ago. Some people seem to feel like there's a glut of
opinions online, like Rotten Tomatoes' offering of "regular folks"
opinions via blog is an unnecessary addition to the professional reviews which
precede them. But. If you're watching a random movie from fifteen years ago, the regular media has dumped those links that promise reviews.
It's nothing but 404 messages ad infinitum.

Bloggers aren't
constrained by the concerns of the regular media. Their reviews shine
brightly years and years after they first appeared. So, by extension, I would
like to extend my hand to book reviewers. Although not as subject to turnover
as film, the splashing out of opinion about books is a gift to one who
wants to listen to a conversation about a book she just finished at 2
a.m.

What did I do before all this? As a
child of the '90s, this constant access to information is something that has
bricked over the past. I swim easily in the sea, forgetting how I used to do
things. So what was different? I saw more movies with other people. Watching
VHS or DVD releases was a thing. It's still a thing, and a much more accessible
one, with Redboxes outside every WalMart.

But in the past, going to the video
store was like going to buy a pair of jeans. You couldn't do it just anywhere.
You had to sift through all of the available categories, the wall of new
releases snaking around the movies shelved by genre. I've worked at a
video store and a library, and my take is that people generally spent more time
picking out movies. Probably because they had to pay to borrow them! And
possibly because the bookstore I worked at had two curtained off closets of
porn at the back, arranged alphabetically by genre. People spent a lot of time
making their selections in the back rooms.

Going to the video store was a treat
when you were a kid and TV couldn't be paused. You weren't subject to the
whims of TV Guide; you could get what you wanted, immediately. I
guess one can see the seeds of our current constant access to practically
whatever we want to watch, read or listen to in the enthusiasm with which we
consumed new releases of all kinds.

Back then, a hive of conversation
happened organically, live and in person. I'd eavesdrop on the opinions of
the moviegoers spilling out of a theater at the Harvard Square Loews or the
Lexington Flick. I'd listen in on people's takes on the new releases at
Videosmith in downtown Lexington. I'd have an actual live conversation
with the people I saw the movie with about whether we liked it or not. Now that
seems passé.

You needed physical access, back
then, to get the new. You could bike or beg a ride or get somebody else's
mother or sister to drive you. But there was that effort. I don't know if it's
bad or good or just different that we have such immediate access. And
even if I did have an opinion, it would inevitably be tainted by nostalgia.
Maybe someone who's seen it all, the advent of TV up to the present, is best
suited to give an opinion. But then again, maybe they'd just bitch about how
much better the radio was.

Thank you, all
you individuals posting your thoughts across the world, for letting me
listen in on the kind of conversations about a book or movie I liked or hated
or was confused by or just wanted to see what other people thought about in
immediate abundance. I won't look at your thoughts before, but I definitely
crave them post consumption.